Newtonmore Community Action Plan 2022

New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030

Com­piled Spring 2022

Sup­por­ted by New­ton­more & Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil New­ton­more Busi­ness Asso­ci­ation New­ton­more Vil­lage Hall New­ton­more Primary Par­ent Coun­cil New­ton­more Com­munity Wood­land & Devel­op­ment Trust St Bride’s Par­ish Church New­ton­more Golf Club

Facil­it­ated by Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch and Strathspey

New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 1 of 24

Con­tents

1. Sum­mary 3
2. The Com­munity 4
3. The Pro­cess 6
4. Com­munity Engage­ment 8
5. Sur­vey Responses 9
6. Action Plan – what the com­munity wants 10
7. Next Steps 16
8. Thanks 18
9. Appen­dices 19 i. What do you like about liv­ing in New­ton­more? ii. If you could improve one thing in New­ton­more … iii. What would you like to see for New­ton­more by 2030? (activ­ity, pro­jects, new approaches)

New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 2 of 24

1. Sum­mary In early spring 2022, New­ton­more & Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil, togeth­er with New­ton­more Busi­ness Asso­ci­ation, New­ton­more Vil­lage Hall, New­ton­more Primary Par­ent Coun­cil, New­ton­more Com­munity Wood­land & Devel­op­ment Trust, St Bride’s Par­ish Church and New­ton­more Golf Club, decided that they wished to carry out a review of the com­munity action plan for the vil­lage, which had been pre­vi­ously under­taken in 2013. The pur­pose of revis­it­ing and updat­ing the plan was primar­ily aimed at giv­ing these key com­munity organ­isa­tions, along with a range of oth­er groups in the vil­lage, plus pub­lic and private sec­tor stake­hold­ers, a strong man­date to move for­ward with tack­ling cur­rent and emer­ging issues, as well as lead­ing on new com­munity pro­jects as iden­ti­fied by the res­id­ents and busi­nesses of New­ton­more in spring 2022.

With sup­port from Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch & Strath­spey, the com­munity-led steer­ing group, com­pris­ing rep­res­ent­at­ives from the sev­en organ­isa­tions lis­ted above, agreed that they would seek the views of loc­al res­id­ents and busi­nesses on a num­ber of key ques­tions. This was achieved via a sur­vey which was per­son­ally delivered to every house­hold by volun­teers — as a paper copy, which was also access­ible online. In addi­tion, the ques­tions con­tained in the sur­vey were also raised with tar­geted groups that were iden­ti­fied as being harder to get accurate/​quality inform­a­tion from. This was under­taken by mem­bers of the steer­ing group going out with the sur­vey ques­tions to places and events where it was con­sidered that indi­vidu­als or groups fall­ing into this cat­egory might be approached.

The pro­cess was entitled New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030. In pre­vi­ous action plan­ning car­ried out by the com­munity, the focus was on activ­ity mostly last­ing up to a 5‑year span. Giv­en the increased need now to also focus on longer-term goals, par­tic­u­larly in rela­tion to the envir­on­ment and the eco­nomy, the New­ton­more com­munity were asked to con­sider where they and the vil­lage wanted to be by 2030, so gen­er­at­ing, more or less, an 8 to 10-year set of plans and aspirations.

Suc­cesses from Newtonmore’s pre­vi­ous action plan­ning include: I. Vil­lage square devel­op­ment com­pris­ing of shinty stick benches & inter­pret­a­tion install­a­tions, plus improve­ments to hall front­age area

1. Upgrade of vil­lage hall includ­ing repaint­ing plus new roof, win­dows and electrics
2. Start on improve­ments to vil­lage website
3. Exten­ded social media offering
4. Bet­ter mar­ket­ing of vil­lage to visitors
5. Start on refur­bish­ing play park
6. Upgraded path­way to war memorial
7. Improved high street with more shops open
8. Improved wild­cat exper­i­ence, through revital­isa­tion of Wild­cat Centre & re-sig­nage of trail
9. Upgrade to ten­nis courts with great­er usage
10. Enhanced shinty facilities
11. Install­a­tion of truck stop sign on A9 New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 3 of 24

To help add to these achieve­ments, res­id­ents were encour­aged to take part in Newtonmore’s action plan review in 2022. How­ever, this time round people were invited to think not only about what might be achieved togeth­er, but that the pro­jects the vil­lage was being asked to con­sider would be ones that would help New­ton­more devel­op a more sus­tain­able future.

The pro­cess adhered to the Nation­al Stand­ards for Com­munity Engage­ment to ensure all of the fol­low­ing ele­ments were fully taken into account dur­ing the com­munity-led ini­ti­at­ive: Impact, Com­mu­nic­a­tion, Meth­ods, Work­ing togeth­er, Plan­ning, Sup­port and Inclu­sion. See Sec­tion 4. Com­munity Engage­ment for fur­ther details on the 7 Standards.

1. The Com­munity The vil­lage of New­ton­more is loc­ated in the west of the scen­ic Cairngorms Nation­al Park and falls with­in the High­land Coun­cil loc­al author­ity area. It has a pop­u­la­tion of just over 1100 people accord­ing to the 2011 census, liv­ing in approx­im­ately 700 households.

New­ton­more is at the very heart of the Scot­tish High­lands and is renowned for its fund- rais­ing for good causes and will­ing­ness to help itself. New­ton­more Vil­lage Hall, New­ton­more Primary School (Gael­ic Medi­um), New­ton­more Com­munity Wood­land & Devel­op­ment Trust (Wild­cat Centre), New­ton­more Golf Club, New­ton­more Caman­achd Club, Clan Macph­er­son Museum and St Bride’s Par­ish Church, all occupy prom­in­ent phys­ic­al loc­a­tions with­in the vil­lage and play sig­ni­fic­ant roles in many aspects of life here, as does the New­ton­more Busi­ness Association.

The rivers Spey, Calder and Allt Laraidh all run through New­ton­more and the imme­di­ate sur­round­ings include a stun­ning nat­ur­al land­scape with many wood­land trails on offer for a vari­ety of recre­ation­al pur­poses. New­ton­more calls itself the ​‘Walk­ing Centre of Scot­land’, refer­ring both to its geo­graph­ic­al loc­a­tion and to the great walk­ing oppor­tun­it­ies loc­ally, like the East High­land Way and com­munity Wild­cat Trail. An exten­sion to the Spey­side Way has added New­ton­more to the Long Dis­tance Route and the vil­lage has now become the new start to this well-used trail.

New­ton­more is a very act­ive and engaged vil­lage, deliv­er­ing a sub­stan­tial amount of com­munity bene­fit for its res­id­ents through a con­sid­er­able num­ber of activ­it­ies and ini­ti­at­ives. This is well demon­strated by the recent addi­tions to the vil­lage square, cel­eb­rat­ing the sport of shinty, the Spey­side Way exten­sion and Newtonmore’s oth­er rich her­it­age through sculp­ture, water and nat­ur­al stone. These fant­ast­ic enhance­ments, togeth­er with an impress­ive array of inter­pret­a­tion boards, were all designed and delivered by Newtonmore’s com­munity organisations.

The vil­lage is also well known for being the loc­a­tion of the highly acclaimed High­land Folk Museum, which draws in many thou­sands of vis­it­ors each year dur­ing its open­ing sea­son. New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 4 of 24

Com­munity Organ­isa­tions There are a con­sid­er­able num­ber of com­munity organisations/​groups which work for the bene­fit of the com­munity and are almost entirely run by volun­teers. These include: New­ton­more and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil, New­ton­more Busi­ness Asso­ci­ation, New­ton­more Vil­lage Hall, New­ton­more Primary Par­ent Coun­cil, New­ton­more Com­munity Wood­land & Devel­op­ment Trust, St Bride’s Par­ish Church, New­ton­more Golf Club, New­ton­more Caman­achd Club and the Winter Lights & 100 Club.

Com­munity Assets Vil­lage Hall Cen­ten­ary Gar­dens War Memori­al Pub­lic Toi­lets An Eil­an shinty grounds and pavil­ion Wild­cat Centre School Play­ing Field Golf Club Bowl­ing Club Play Park Ten­nis Courts

Loc­al Busi­nesses There are a con­sid­er­able num­ber of loc­al busi­nesses oper­at­ing out of New­ton­more and many of these are rep­res­en­ted by New­ton­more Busi­ness Asso­ci­ation, an organ­isa­tion run by loc­al volun­teers and rep­res­ent­ing com­mer­cial activ­ity in the village.

New­ton­more is a work­ing vil­lage and busi­nesses include the loc­al gar­age, hotels, guest houses and B&Bs, retail and food out­lets. In addi­tion to these, the com­munity is home to Russ­wood a major wood pro­cessor employ­ing around 50 people, the food pro­cessor Simpsons Game, drink pro­cessor Stag’s Breath, cater­ers The Lunch Box Boys, as well as Smiths Uphol­stery. A num­ber of build­ers, join­ers and heavy plant com­pan­ies, togeth­er with farm­ers, crofters, people employed on estates and car­ry­ing out oth­er kinds of envir­on­ment­al work and artis­an indus­tries make up the work­ing heart of this community.

New­ton­more is also a tour­ist des­tin­a­tion and is the loc­a­tion for the Clan Macph­er­son Museum and the High­land Folk Museum, which occu­pies a site close to the heart of the vil­lage, bring­ing in a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of vis­it­ors to the cul­tur­al her­it­age-based park every year.

It should also be noted that the vil­lage emerged as lead­ers (after Ullapool) in a sur­vey of self- employ­ment levels in nearly 500 towns, cit­ies and sub­urbs, car­ried out by the Fed­er­a­tion of Small Busi­nesses in Scot­land in 2017 and that high level of entre­pren­eur­i­al spir­it has not changed in the years since, even dur­ing the Cov­id pandemic.

So there is a lot going for New­ton­more, this pic­tur­esque High­land vil­lage of just 1100 people. New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 5 of 24

1. The Pro­cess The New­ton­more com­munity con­sulta­tion peri­od ran from Feb­ru­ary to April 2022 and dur­ing this time, the way in which the com­munity action plan­ning pro­cess was car­ried out, broadly fell into four stages. These were: 1) Gath­er­ing Inform­a­tion 2) Data Sort­ing and Col­la­tion 3) Involving People & Refin­ing Ideas 4) Com­munity Action Plan (CAP) doc­u­ment production

With­in the four stages of the pro­cess, the fol­low­ing ques­tions were asked by the steer­ing group. Gath­er­ing Inform­a­tion What do we want to know? What ques­tions will we ask? What meth­ods will we use? How will we do it? Data Sort­ing What does it involve? How will we do it? Who will do / assist with this? In what form will we present it back to the community?

Involving People & Refin­ing Ideas What stake­hold­er groups do we need to involve? How (& where) will we present the inform­a­tion gathered so far? How will people in the com­munity help refine the inform­a­tion? Who will assist with this?

CAP doc­u­ment pro­duc­tion What will it include? Who will put it togeth­er? How will it be presen­ted to the com­munity? What hap­pens to it next?

In addi­tion, the steer­ing group also con­sidered what times­cales and key dates they wanted to aim for and how they would deal with Com­mu­nic­a­tions & Pub­li­city — ensur­ing that these ele­ments were robust, so the pro­cess was as inclus­ive as it could be.

The fifth and most cru­cial stage of the whole action plan­ning ini­ti­at­ive, involves deliv­ery of the plan by the New­ton­more com­munity and oth­er stake­hold­ers. Essen­tially this deals with ques­tions such as: Who will take respons­ib­il­ity for the CAP? How will it be driv­en for­ward? How will it be mon­itored and eval­u­ated? New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 6 of 24

There is more detail on how this can be achieved in Sec­tion 7. Next Steps. Gath­er­ing Inform­a­tion There was a lot of dis­cus­sion about the nature and pre­cise word­ing of ques­tions in the sur­vey, as the steer­ing group wanted to revis­it ques­tions asked in pre­vi­ous com­munity-led action plan­ning, to re-estab­lish what spe­cif­ic things people liked about New­ton­more and wanted to keep in the vil­lage. They also wished to encour­age the com­munity to look to an 8 to 10-year hori­zon, and con­sider how New­ton­more might tackle some of the trick­i­er issues such as care for the envir­on­ment, sup­port­ing young­er and older res­id­ents, employ­ab­il­ity and trans­port. So ques­tions were employed which were broadly framed, to allow respon­ders to bring up a wide range of issues and ideas without being led.

The paper ver­sion covered just two sides of A4 and the sur­vey asked 4 ques­tions: 1) What do you like about liv­ing in New­ton­more? 2) If you could improve one thing in New­ton­more (more if you like), what would it be? 3) What would you like to see for New­ton­more by 2030? (You might want to think about how as indi­vidu­als, or as a vil­lage, we can improve the envir­on­ment, impact of cli­mate change, our loc­al eco­nomy, social and leis­ure oppor­tun­it­ies and Newtonmore’s cul­tur­al exper­i­ences.) 4) Are there any pro­jects (large or small) that you would like to see hap­pen­ing in the village?

The sur­vey also asked: Would you be will­ing to get involved in any pro­jects you are inter­ested in? YES / NO If Yes, please provide con­tact details.

This last addi­tion­al ques­tion was included to try to encour­age more people to come for­ward to help with pro­jects that were of par­tic­u­lar interest to them, in order to coun­ter­act the reduc­tion in volun­teer num­bers, that had come about in recent years and espe­cially fol­low­ing the pandemic.

It was decided that all house­holds would receive a paper copy of the sur­vey through their let­ter­box and this was car­ried out by a team of com­munity volun­teers, who over a peri­od of a few days, delivered 750 cop­ies out into the com­munity. This meth­od helped to deliv­er an inclus­ive pro­cess of com­munity engage­ment, where every­one had the oppor­tun­ity to respond to the sur­vey if they wished and they were able to do this via hard copy, which could be depos­ited back into one of the cent­rally loc­ated sur­vey boxes, or online via QR code which enabled the com­munity to access the sur­vey on a range of devices.

Data Sort­ing All of the responses came in either online via Sur­vey Mon­key, by hard copy into CAP-branded boxes left at busy loc­a­tions in the vil­lage, or from inform­a­tion col­lated at events put on for spe­cif­ic groups in the vil­lage. Sur­veys were returned from the village’s primary and sec­ond­ary school pupils and these responses were dis­played sep­ar­ately to high­light the ideas and opin­ions of Newtonmore’s young people. New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 7 of 24

Every com­ment was recor­ded and cat­egor­ised, so that every­one would be able to ​‘see’ their voice in the dis­played res­ults. The inform­a­tion was sor­ted into 4 main themes: Social, Envir­on­ment­al, Eco­nom­ic and Cul­tur­al and the num­ber of times a par­tic­u­lar issue or idea was men­tioned was noted, so pri­or­it­ies could rise to the top of the lists in each themed cat­egory. These lists were then pre­pared for dis­play (see Sec­tion 6. Action Plan – what the com­munity wants and Sec­tion 9. Appen­dices), so every mem­ber of the com­munity could see what had been said and get involved in the next stage, when ideas were refined and solu­tions to issues sought.

Involving People & Refin­ing Ideas The pro­cess cul­min­ated in Newtonmore’s Big Con­ver­sa­tion, which took place over 3 days in April 2022 at the Vil­lage Hall. At this exten­ded drop in event, the res­ults were offered back to the com­munity and time giv­en for reflec­tion and dis­cus­sion around the top­ics. Dur­ing the 3 days, all of the 72 res­id­ents who atten­ded were asked to con­sider the top pri­or­it­ies that had been iden­ti­fied from the pro­cess under the head­ings of New­ton­more: A Socially Con­nec­ted Com­munity A Cli­mate Con­scious Com­munity An Eco­nom­ic­ally Thriv­ing Com­munity A Cul­tur­ally Vibrant Community

They were asked to look at those areas of par­tic­u­lar interest to them and write on action plan tem­plates aimed at refin­ing ideas by look­ing at ques­tions such as: What spe­cif­ic action needs to be taken to achieve this pri­or­ity and Who needs to be involved?

CAP doc­u­ment pro­duc­tion All of the com­ments and pieces of inform­a­tion giv­en by the pub­lic dur­ing the Big Con­ver­sa­tion event were col­lec­ted and incor­por­ated into this report, which now belongs to the New­ton­more com­munity and will be used as the basis for ongo­ing com­munity devel­op­ment in the vil­lage over the next 10 years, with sup­port from the community’s organ­isa­tions and all oth­er rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers from the pub­lic, private and vol­un­tary sector.

Also a list of all those who came for­ward offer­ing to volun­teer their help with cer­tain pro­jects was com­piled and will be held by the team tak­ing the action plan for­ward (referred to as Team New­ton­more for the pur­poses of this report). New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 8 of 24

1. Com­munity Engage­ment The Nation­al Stand­ards for Com­munity Engage­ment are good-prac­tice prin­ciples designed to improve and guide the pro­cess of com­munity engagement.

They are clear prin­ciples that describe the main ele­ments of effect­ive com­munity engage­ment. They provide detailed per­form­ance state­ments that every­one involved can use to achieve the highest qual­ity res­ults and the greatest impact.

The stand­ards are par­tic­u­larly help­ful for com­munit­ies — their organ­isa­tions and groups — to help them involve their Inclu­sion We will identi­fy and involve the people and organ­isa­tions that are affected by the focus of the engage­ment. Com­mu­nic­a­tion We will com­mu­nic­ate clearly and reg­u­larly with the people, organ­isa­tions and com­munit­ies affected by the engage­ment. Meth­ods We will use meth­ods of engage­ment that are fit for pur­pose. Impact We will assess the impact of the engage­ment and use what has been learned to improve our future com­munity engage­ment. Sup­port We will identi­fy and over­come any bar­ri­ers to par­ti­cip­a­tion. Plan­ning There is a clear pur­pose for the engage­ment, which is based on a shared under­stand­ing of com­munity needs and ambi­tions. Work­ing Togeth­er We will work effect­ively togeth­er to achieve the aims of the engage­ment. mem­bers or the wider com­munity in shap­ing the ser­vices and changes they need, and to make sure they accur­ately rep­res­ent mem­bers’ or the community’s views in the decision- mak­ing processes.

1. Sur­vey Responses 151 indi­vidu­al sur­veys were returned both online and via hard copy.

For a full list of what came out of the sur­vey responses, see Sec­tion 9. Appen­dices (list of appen­dices below). These show all com­ments made by the com­munity in answer to the sur­vey ques­tions, pri­or­it­ised in order of the num­ber of people who men­tioned them.

Appendix I What do you like about liv­ing in New­ton­more Appendix 2 If you could improve one thing in New­ton­more Appendix 3 What would you like to see for New­ton­more by 2030 (themed pri­or­it­ies) New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 9 of 24

1. Action Plan – what the com­munity wants Pro­ject Themes and Pri­or­it­ies The CAP sets out the community’s vis­ion for the longer term (up to 10 years) with more detailed pri­or­ity activ­ity across the 4 spe­cified themes, itemising out­comes which are cat­egor­ised in col­our in the tables below for when they will be achieved: short term (1−3 years), medi­um to longer term (4 ‑10 years).

It is import­ant to note that some of the pro­ject out­comes will be a ​“quick win” where­as oth­ers will take time to plan and execute. To achieve res­ults and out­comes in the short, medium/​longer term each high pri­or­ity project/​outcome will have its own activ­ity plan which will be Spe­cif­ic, Meas­ur­able, Achiev­able, Real­ist­ic and Timely (SMART) and determ­ined and agreed in the first part of the CAP implementation.

These 4 themes were taken and put into sep­ar­ate group­ings, show­ing what the pri­or­it­ies are for each theme. With­in each pri­or­ity, pro­jects have been lis­ted that have been drawn from the high pri­or­it­ies that came out of the sur­vey data. Fur­ther views and inform­a­tion for each pri­or­ity were sought from those who atten­ded the drop in event and sug­ges­ted actions, togeth­er with any addi­tion­al inform­a­tion are out­lined below each sec­tion. + NEW­TON­MORE: A SOCIALLY CON­NEC­TED COM­MUNITY Pri­or­ity: Improve place & activ­ity for Newtonmore’s young people Cre­ate gath­er­ing space (indoor & out­door) for young people to social­ise, be safe and carry out leis­ure activ­ity Youth Club After school activ­it­ies eg bike main­ten­ance, climb­ing wall Play park: Clune Ter­race Pump track/​Skate ramps Upgrade to school play­ing field Pri­or­ity: Flex­ible and mod­ern com­munity meet­ing space Refur­bish vil­lage hall, to upgrade facil­it­ies & increase its poten­tial use Strengthen hall board to carry out required improve­ments Pri­or­ity: Increase social events and activ­it­ies for all ages A com­munity-run group deliv­er­ing leis­ure activ­it­ies & events for all ages and activ­it­ies eg music, fit­ness, talks, ceilidhs, films, classes, bingo

PRI­OR­ITY: IMPROVE PLACE & ACTIV­ITY FOR NEWTONMORE’S YOUNG PEOPLE Cre­ate gath­er­ing space (indoor and out­door) for young people to social­ise, be safe and carry out leis­ure activ­ity • • • Bring under 25s togeth­er with exist­ing com­munity group reps to explore what is needed and how a place/​space can be cre­ated to meet the needs. Work togeth­er to under­stand any con­straints and oppor­tun­it­ies – co-design the pro­ject and involve young people in the plan­ning includ­ing timetable of activ­it­ies and search for fund­ing Devel­op area behind shinty ground for oth­er sports/​activities eg bike park, pump track, skate park Invest­ig­ate appet­ite and volun­teer sup­port for a Youth Club New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 10 of 24

After school activ­it­ies eg bike main­ten­ance, climb­ing wall • • • • Look into occa­sion­al rent­al of a port­able climb­ing wall or put­ting one on out­side of a com­munity build­ing Repur­pose the ​‘rusty shed’ into a messy arts space for com­munity Play park: Clune Ter­race Sup­port for group to upgrade this facil­ity – per­haps work with new com­munity trust

Upgrade to school play­ing field This needs to be pri­or­it­ised as has been talked about for a long time Per­haps look at an out­door gym here for chil­dren and adults

PRI­OR­ITY: FLEX­IBLE AND MOD­ERN COM­MUNITY MEET­ING SPACE Refur­bish vil­lage hall, to upgrade facil­it­ies & increase its poten­tial use Hold a facil­it­ated pub­lic meet­ing to ask the vil­lage what they want from their hall spe­cific­ally, what the options are re facil­it­ies and activ­it­ies, look at cost­ing and who will help Identi­fy all refur­bish­ments needed and plan for upgrade and fund­ing require­ments over a 3‑year peri­od Look at mar­ket­ing the hall for wed­dings etc, to bring in more rev­en­ue and oppor­tun­it­ies for increased prof­it­ab­il­ity Estab­lish a reg­u­lar main­ten­ance plan – see oth­er B&S halls for guid­ance Make more use of out­door meet­ing space behind hall Ensure hall web­site page is up to date, so people can find out who to con­tact for book­ing, pri­cing struc­ture and maybe avail­ab­il­ity of space via an online Hall cal­en­dar (see Boat of Garten)

Strengthen hall board to carry out required improve­ments • • From meet­ing above, recruit new (young) volun­teers to help take devel­op­ment and activ­ity for­ward Look at how hall is man­aged on a day to day basis and explore any ideas for bet­ter support

PRI­OR­ITY: INCREASE SOCIAL EVENTS AND ACTIV­IT­IES FOR ALL AGES A com­munity-run group deliv­er­ing leis­ure activ­it­ies & events for all ages and activ­it­ies eg music, fit­ness, talks, ceilidhs, films, classes, bingo … • • • See hall ses­sion above – pri­or­it­ise activ­it­ies and WHO will do them, could come from this Music­al activ­it­ies, fit­ness, cinema, seni­ors club, fam­ily dances, after school club all high­lighted in Big Con­ver­sa­tion com­ments Loc­al befriend­ing scheme for people and fam­il­ies New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 11 of 24

+ NEW­TON­MORE: A CLI­MATE CON­SCIOUS COM­MUNITY Pri­or­ity: Make the most of our nat­ur­al envir­on­ment Act­ive Travel: safer cyc­ling routes around and near vil­lage Ducks cross­ing sign near High­land Folk Museum Paths: improve to make fully access­ible Plant­ing in and around vil­lage: fruit & oth­er trees, hedges, wild flowers Pri­or­ity: Use our nat­ur­al assets to devel­op enter­prise, busi­ness and tour­ism oppor­tun­it­ies Devel­op allot­ments, com­munity grow­ing space, com­munity orch­ard Com­munity owned wood­land Explore har­ness­ing Pri­or­ity: Build up our com­munity resi­li­ence Set up cli­mate change group to sup­port com­munity action and sup­port for house­holds More EV char­ging points Food share/​community fridge pro­ject & food waste renew­able energy for loc­al share scheme income gen­er­a­tion (hydro/​wind) More recyc­ling: bins in Main Street, food recyc­ling at home Reg­u­lar (monthly) com­munity lit­ter picks

PRI­OR­ITY: MAKE THE MOST OF OUR NAT­UR­AL ENVIR­ON­MENT Act­ive Travel: safer cyc­ling routes around and near vil­lage • A ​‘gre­en­way’ cycle route around vil­lage – for all abil­it­ies • Would be good to try and join up the cycle paths • Cycle path to Laggan

Ducks cross­ing sign near High­land Folk Museum • Put appro­pri­ate sign up

Paths: improve to make fully access­ible • Paths for wheel­chair and pram users • Fully access­ible not realistic

Plant­ing in and around vil­lage: fruit & oth­er trees, hedges, wild flowers • Plant a wild­flower mead­ow – work with a loc­al landown­er? • Keep graz­ing sheep on golf course = great place for wild­flowers eg orch­ids • Look into a nat­ur­al buri­al site for the area • Ref Sue Thomas’s wild­flower blog and pamph­let – make more available

PRI­OR­ITY: USE OUR NAT­UR­AL ASSETS TO DEVEL­OP ENTER­PRISE, BUSI­NESS AND TOUR­ISM OPPOR­TUN­IT­IES • Con­sider devel­op­ing a com­munity-owned orch­ard See how many people would like/​use an allot­ment and explore pos­sible sites with High­land Coun­cil Use exist­ing poly­tun­nel at Calder Bridge for com­munity use A com­munity veg garden to grow and sell pro­duce to loc­al people New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 12 of 24

• Com­munity owned wood­land Devel­op a com­munity owned wood­land for recre­ation and edu­ca­tion purposes

Explore har­ness­ing renew­able energy for loc­al income gen­er­a­tion (hydro/​wind) Speak with CNPA for sup­port with pos­sible hydro pro­ject using the Calder or Allt Laraidh and also com­munity wind tur­bines Buy com­munity shares in a loc­al wind­farm / add an extra Wind Tur­bine Gen­er­at­or to a devel­op­ment eg Fintry own­er­ship mod­el, to provide income to vil­lage for fur­ther pro­jects PRI­OR­ITY: BUILD UP OUR COM­MUNITY RESI­LI­ENCE Set up cli­mate change group to sup­port com­munity action and sup­port for house­holds Eco car share scheme Host an Energy Effi­ciency event (with experts) for advice, products, installers and sources of fin­an­cial sup­port. Espe­cially for those with older homes Com­munity know­ledge-share of ideas for heating/​insulation of homes Sig­ni­fic­ant improve­ment in pub­lic trans­port so people use cars less – res­id­ents and tourists

More EV char­ging points • Install­a­tion of EV char­ging points at main car park (good for loc­al cafes and shops as people wait for car to charge)

Food share/​community fridge pro­ject & food waste share scheme • Install a com­munity fridge • Set up a food bank in Newtonmore

More recyc­ling: bins in Main Street, food recyc­ling at home • Lobby for food waste recyc­ling at home • Lobby for recyc­ling bins in Main Street

Reg­u­lar (monthly) com­munity lit­ter picks • • Reg­u­lar com­munity lit­ter picks – includ­ing young people. Get an inter­ested group of volun­teers to organ­ise. Maybe link in with a loc­al event eg before a shinty match? Lit­ter pick­ing tools can now be bor­rowed from Wild­cat Centre New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 13 of 24

+ NEW­TON­MORE: AN ECO­NOM­IC­ALLY THRIV­ING COM­MUNITY Pri­or­ity: Improve sup­port and assist­ance for loc­al busi­nesses & people try­ing to get into work Pri­or­ity: Increase oppor­tun­it­ies to attract tour­ism and busi­ness to the loc­al area Loc­al people giv­en afford­able hous­ing Explore poten­tial for com­munity pri­or­ity Sup­port for busi­ness start-ups and exist­ing loc­al busi­nesses Improve inter­net speed through lob­by­ing / pro­ject to achieve fibre to all premises eg com­munity part­ner­ship with Open Reach owned energy com­pany Improve sig­nage of loc­al attrac­tions includ­ing vil­lage entrances Have a des­ig­nated and sup­por­ted site for camper­vans (waste, recyc­ling and elec­tric char­ging) Lar­ger camp­site for campers and tourers

PRI­OR­ITY: IMPROVE SUP­PORT AND ASSIST­ANCE FOR LOC­AL BUSI­NESSES & PEOPLE TRY­ING TO GET INTO WORK Loc­al people giv­en afford­able hous­ing pri­or­ity • For loc­al young people and also those loc­als who are older and downs­iz­ing • More social hous­ing for young people and fam­il­ies • Restrict­ing hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion for tour­ists won’t cre­ate more afford­able homes more hous­ing is required Need to cap 2^nd homes or increase taxes ask CNPA for sup­port Need to keep bal­ance between wel­com­ing those with hol­i­day homes and hav­ing accom­mod­a­tion for key work­ers in tour­ism sec­tor Incentiv­ise pri­or­ity treat­ment for loc­al/young­/low-income ten­ants, so 2^nd homers have a reas­on to take them instead

Sup­port for busi­ness start-ups and exist­ing loc­al busi­nesses • More train­ing / appren­tice­ship oppor­tun­it­ies for young people and those out of work

Improve inter­net speed through lob­by­ing / pro­ject to achieve fibre to all premises eg com­munity part­ner­ship with Open Reach

PRI­OR­ITY: INCREASE OPPOR­TUN­IT­IES TO ATTRACT TOUR­ISM AND BUSI­NESS TO THE LOC­AL AREA Explore poten­tial for com­munity owned energy company

Improve sig­nage of loc­al attrac­tions includ­ing vil­lage entrances • Wel­come signs to the vil­lage – make a state­ment • Vibrant signs with Gael­ic name and maybe flower pots for a pos­it­ive vil­lage feel

Have a des­ig­nated and sup­por­ted site for camper­vans (waste, recyc­ling and elec­tric charging)

Lar­ger camp­site for campers and tour­ers • Include Elec­tric hook up and oth­er facil­it­ies eg bin, water, grey and brown water waste New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 14 of 24

+ NEW­TON­MORE: A CUL­TUR­ALLY VIBRANT COM­MUNITY Pri­or­ity: Set up a Com­munity Trust Pri­or­ity: Wild­cat Centre & Trail Pri­or­ity: Improve Cen­ten­ary Gar­dens Bring togeth­er rep­res­ent­a­tion from all Long-term main­ten­ance of Trail Land­scape gar­dens behind vil­lage hall to com­munity groups to provide path­ways, work togeth­er for whole Ensure sus­tain­ab­il­ity of plant­ing and dis­abled access of com­munity Centre Deliv­er pro­jects and gen­er­ate income for com­munity devel­op­ment Improve Trail path­ways to increase accessibility

PRI­OR­ITY: SET UP A COM­MUNITY TRUST Bring togeth­er rep­res­ent­a­tion from all com­munity groups to work togeth­er for whole of com­munity • Hold ini­tial meet­ing for vil­lage to agree set up and invite people/​organisation reps to sit on trust • Bring com­munity assets togeth­er in one place

Deliv­er pro­jects and gen­er­ate income for com­munity devel­op­ment Con­sider some long-term leg­acy pro­jects eg a hydro scheme or com­munity own­er­ship of wind tur­bines PRI­OR­ITY: WILD­CAT CENTRE & TRAIL Long-term main­ten­ance of Trail Explore ways to include bikes on trails without impact­ing on ped­es­tri­an access

Ensure sus­tain­ab­il­ity of Centre • Look at ways of devel­op­ing more/​different income streams • Work with new com­munity trust to try and reduce costs Up to date publication/​leaflet to show which cats to look out for

Improve Trail path­ways to increase access­ib­il­ity • Fix the Allt Laraidh sec­tion • Work with landown­ers to try and extend the access peri­od • Invest in more/​better sig­nage and easi­er to read maps • Show where dog bins are on trail map

PRI­OR­ITY: IMPROVE CEN­TEN­ARY GAR­DENS Land­scape gar­dens behind vil­lage hall to provide path­ways, plant­ing and dis­abled access • Improve the road­way down and renew path­ways to pic­nic tables New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 15 of 24

• • • • • Bet­ter sig­nage to gar­dens and pic­nic area Add in an access­ible sens­ory garden Volun­teers to main­tain plants Ensure THC cut the grass and empty bins reg­u­larly Set aside a main­ten­ance slush fund

1. Next Steps: Deliv­ery Steps to deliv­er the New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan The next steps to start work­ing with the action plan and look­ing at how parts can start to be delivered will be sub­ject to some dis­cus­sion with­in Newtonmore’s com­munity organ­isa­tions, but broadly involves col­lect­ively: • Set­ting up a Team New­ton­more (see below) to take the plan for­ward. Agree­ing a chair for a spe­cified peri­od at a time, so will rotate after X months or after X meet­ings Agree­ing to adopt the Val­ues and Prin­ciples laid out below Agree­ing what pri­or­it­ies will be taken for­ward ini­tially Man­aging the pro­ject volun­teer list that has come out of the pro­cess • Involving all key stake­hold­ers (organ­isa­tions & indi­vidu­als) in co-design of pro­ject deliv­ery • • • • • • Draw­ing up a more detailed deliv­ery action plan for each pri­or­it­ised pro­ject, identi­fy­ing aims, actions, mile­stones, who needs to be involved, key deliv­er­ables. (VABS has a tem­plate for this.) Com­mu­nic­at­ing pro­gress with the com­munity Review­ing pro­gress on a reg­u­lar basis Revis­it­ing the action plan as required

Val­ues and Prin­ciples The fol­low­ing val­ues and prin­ciples will under­pin the way in which this action plan is rolled out and imple­men­ted: 1) A plan for all — it is the respons­ib­il­ity of the whole com­munity (indi­vidu­als and groups) to unite and work togeth­er for pro­ject ambi­tions to be real­ised 2) Trans­par­ency — all ideas should be planned and researched openly with a com­mit­ment to co-pro­duc­tion where groups con­trib­ute to the ideas as they devel­op 3) Part­ner­ship — work­ing togeth­er with a shared agenda will be at the heart of any activ­ity arising from this plan 4) Inclu­sion — every­one is invited to par­ti­cip­ate and every­one bene­fits, regard­less of age and abil­ity 5) Impact — the suc­cess of this plan will be judged on activ­it­ies which have a pos­it­ive influ­ence on people and com­munit­ies 6) Involve­ment — ensur­ing the com­munity is mean­ing­fully involved in decisions that affect their lives.

Team New­ton­more It is very import­ant to ensure the effect­ive deliv­ery of this action plan, for the whole com­munity to work togeth­er to imple­ment it, ie a full vil­lage approach not just one or two New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 16 of 24

organ­isa­tions. This approach has been called Team New­ton­more in this report, but of course the com­munity will decide on its own name for these purposes.

Team New­ton­more will be the for­um for agree­ing on how the Steps at the start of this sec­tion are taken for­ward, as well as where respons­ib­il­ity will sit in terms of deliv­er­ing on the Val­ues and Prin­ciples out­lined above. It will not have a sep­ar­ate leg­al iden­tity, but simply be a for­um called maybe two or three times a year, per­haps by a rotat­ing chair. It should com­prise as a min­im­um, rep­res­ent­at­ives from the 7 organ­isa­tions who ini­tially steered the action plan­ning pro­cess, togeth­er with any oth­er sig­ni­fic­ant com­munity organisations.

Ongo­ing com­munity engage­ment A pro­cess for secur­ing com­munity man­dates for pro­jects at key mile­stones is advis­able, so that pro­jects can enjoy broad com­munity sup­port, fol­low best prac­tice in terms of co-design and allow for those who will be most impacted by a project’s deliv­er­ables to be involved in the activity.

Volun­teer lists A list of people who have come for­ward to volun­teer in gen­er­al or for spe­cif­ic pro­jects, has been com­piled from a ques­tion in the sur­vey and also inform­a­tion giv­en by res­id­ents at the Big Con­ver­sa­tion event. The New­ton­more CAP Volun­teer list is a vital part of the action plan­ning pro­cess and those on the list need to be kept informed of how things are being pro­gressed and what part they might be able to play in that.

Levels of Sup­port The sur­veys have giv­en the key com­munity organ­isa­tions in New­ton­more, a lot of detailed inform­a­tion com­ing from a wide sec­tor of the com­munity, regard­ing their thoughts on issues and ideas for pro­jects that they would like to see taken for­ward on their behalf.

The pri­or­it­ies fall into two main groups and will require to be tackled in a dif­fer­ent way: • • pro­jects which, although some are mid to longer term, are pos­sible for the com­munity to take for­ward them­selves, with some min­im­al sup­port from the rel­ev­ant key agen­cies or sup­port organ­isa­tions. large, com­plex issues around employ­ment, hous­ing, trans­port, busi­ness sup­port and infra­struc­ture, where the com­munity will require a great deal of long term assist­ance from vari­ous pub­lic, third and some­times private sec­tor organ­isa­tions in order to take these for­ward and make a not­able difference.

Mon­it­or­ing, Audit­ing and Eval­u­ation of the Com­munity Action Plan Mon­it­or­ing, audit­ing and eval­u­ation are essen­tial require­ments of any Com­munity Action Plan to ensure it is being imple­men­ted. Team New­ton­more will meet reg­u­larly to review pro­gress on the plan. Keep­ing records against each theme and pro­ject will be a use­ful tool to ensure pro­gress is being main­tained. These meet­ings will be open and access­ible to all groups and indi­vidu­als. Eval­u­ation provides an oppor­tun­ity to reflect and learn from activ­it­ies, assess the out­comes and effect­ive­ness of a pro­ject and think about new ways of doing things. New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 17 of 24

1. Thanks & Acknow­ledge­ments Thanks for all their involve­ment and hard work in help­ing to make the pro­cess a suc­cess must go to:
   • New­ton­more & Vicin­ity Com­munity Council
   • New­ton­more Busi­ness Association
   • New­ton­more Vil­lage Hall
   • New­ton­more Primary Par­ent Coun­cil and School
   • New­ton­more Com­munity Wood­land Devel­op­ment Trust
   • St Bride’s Par­ish Church
   • New­ton­more Golf Club
   • New­ton­more Coop (for the sup­ply of refresh­ments dur­ing the Big Conversation)
   • All the deliv­ery volun­teers who put sur­veys through every household’s door
   • The lona Gal­lery (for loan of dis­play stands for the Big Conversation)

Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch and Strath­spey (VABS), as an inde­pend­ent com­munity and volun­teer­ing devel­op­ment char­ity, sup­por­ted the New­ton­more com­munity through this com­munity action plan­ning pro­cess and facil­it­ated the steer­ing group meet­ings, but always fol­low­ing the community’s lead in how they wished to proceed.

Com­munity Action Plan­ning (CAP) is car­ried out with all of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park com­munit­ies on a reg­u­lar basis at the community’s request. Fund­ing for the CAP pro­cess in these cases is provided by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. New­ton­more Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 18 of 24

1. Appen­dices Appendix i What do you like about liv­ing in New­ton­more? • Com­munity spir­it & friendly people • The beau­ti­ful set­ting, sur­rounds, scenery & land­scape, fresh air • Peace & quiet • Good facil­it­ies: Coop, PO, trades­men, places to eat, fish van, phar­macy, pet­rol sta­tion, cafes • • Wide range of out­door activ­it­ies around area: shinty, golf